


Act of Trust

by Duchesse



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gender Neutral, Gender Neutral Pronouns, Pining, Reader Insert, Romance, reader interactive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 21:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duchesse/pseuds/Duchesse
Summary: On one particularly cozy night, she asks you to cut her hair.[Princess Zelda/Reader].





	Act of Trust

The sky burned orange and pink that evening as the sun slowly dipped beyond the peaks of the mountains far in the distance. Had you looked to the sky this time three days ago, you would had seeing all the vastness and emerald green of Hyrule from behind white clouded breath at the tallest reaches of those same mountains.

You could say with certainty that you preferred this sunset, though. The balmy evenings carried the caress of a gentle breeze that felt like something and nothing all the same. It invited the songs from toads and crickets, and the mellifluous coo from doves nesting in the brush nearby. With it, the fire hissed and swayed erratically with its hues that rivaled the very sky you loved.

Zelda had been quite tantalized by those flames, eyes bright and unyielding no matter vehement they got with the wind wrapping around them. You sat some ways from her on a stump with deep roots, lips tight to the rim of a copper mug with a blend of tea and milk still too hot for your tongue. As lovely as it was, sitting in the gloaming like this with her, you could not quell an uneasiness in you that evening.

A knife rested in her hands, still sheathed in its coarse leather sheath that she slowly rotated; palm resting at the hilt, fingertips pressed against the rounded point of leather. Once, Link had told you that he had never seen an occasion where she held a blade at all; her fate was far different from his own, after all.

Princesses, in accordance to every fairy tale you grew up with, were meant to be protected- not to be staring at the very face of war, nor to tread through seas of blood. Of course, those stories were kind, idyllic, and a lie because Zelda was never granted such a fate. The extent of what you knew of her did not go beyond what Link managed to tell you, or the cautious divulges of what Zelda herself disclosed.

It wasn’t your place to press, so you never did.

Perhaps she saw something in that quality of you. You had noticed the change in her clearly. From a frigidity that overshadowed the snowpeaks that set your limbs on fire, a glint of darkness always just there in her radiant blue eyes when she saw you, to something so much softer you thought her more ethereal than any goddess.

You still recalled the first time she smiled at you without that tightness that always made her seem smug, mocking almost. Further on, you learned, of course, that her taut smiles stemmed from an agony that you could never possibly comprehend. Truthfully, you didn’t want that burden.

“Can you… I mean- may I ask you for a favor?” asked Zelda, startling you from your thoughts so suddenly that your tea nearly tipped down your shirt. The bark beneath her thighs crunched and scuffed against the fabric as she turned towards you, blade unsheathed to give glory to the steel that gleamed almost yellow against the flames. “Will you cut my hair for me?”

The mug nearly slipped between your fingers at her request, though her voice had been so slight, quieting progressively as the sun had lowered, you thought you heard her wrong.

“Come again?” you pressed, eyes flicking towards the ground and back as you moved your mug to the ground. “Why do you want me to do that? I play beautiful music and tell stories, not play with knives. I think you should wait for Link to come back.”

“No. I don’t want to trouble him with this,” Zelda insisted, squeezing the hilt hard enough that you heard the squeak of leather. “Please, I need to do this. I know- I know I haven’t always been kind to you, and there’s a lot now that you still do not know. I want you to do this because I trust you.”

A vise gripped your heart at that moment, yanking against your ribs while the words you wished to speak died in the swell of your throat. You wet your lips with the tip of your tongue, pulling them thin as you nodded, rising from the stump to instead straddle the log where she sat.

Again, there was her smile that you had grown to cherish so. It set her face aglow as she mirrored you, swinging a leg across the log until her knees just touched the dirt. When she handed you the knife, your first thought was the surprising heftiness of it as you tested it in your hands.

“You don’t have to anything spectacular, an even cut across will be fine.” There was a lilt in her voice now, an eagerness you weren’t sure what to make of. Her back was straight and still with all the rigidity of a statue while her hands rested on the log below. “And take your time. I won’t rush you through it.”

“A pair of scissors would’ve been better than this,” you said, teetering the knife atop the log as you reached for her hair, letting the thin locks you grabbed glide between your fingers like silk. In a way, you felt undeserving to be entrusted with this task, being that you weren’t a person significant enough to be touching a princess, much less her at all. “Your hair is really soft.”

You heard the hum in her throat as she craned her neck to peek over her shoulder. “You know, turns out you really never consider what things you actually need on an adventure until you’re already on it. Just like how you never realize how impractical long hair is, either.”

Once she turned back, you busied yourself with rooting your fingers through her locks to her scalp, gently raking them down the length to smooth out the knots barely there. Her head bobbed with the light pulls you gave, saying nothing and doing nothing else. You were particularly fascinated when the fire caught the sheen off of her hair, reminding you much of spun gold.

It was a long time before you took the blade in your hand again, clasping your fingers against the leather hilt a few times to get your grip. She never raised a qualm at your reluctance, you assumed she understood the feeling, that gut-wrenching force that steadied the hand sealed the throat.

She had to have been just as scared of this as you were.

You willed yourself up to bringing the knife close, adjusting it at different angles, pulling the length of her hair taut and then loosening it- you weren’t quite sure how to go about it. “Are you just wanting a couple of inches off, or what?”

There came no response at first, so you leaned off the log to get an angle to see her face. She replied then, softly yet firm, “Enough to where it will not get in the way anymore.”

Vague as it was, it was workable. The first cut came after another five or ten minutes of hesitation, sawing straight across just at her middle back, listening as the hair seemed to grind against the blade. The back of your hand itched when strands ghosted across your skin, and then locks of blonde fell onto your lap in a heap.

“Keep going.” She encouraged, curling her nails into the bark on the log. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”

You continued on with slow, deliberate cuts, blowing away the floating hairs from your face and attempting to ignore the growing weight on your legs. By the time her voice resonated in your head again, nightfall had grasped the world, and the flames seemed to try to bite less. As the blade lowered in your hand, you were particularly surprised by the full view of her back- the first time you had actually seen anything beyond her hair.

“Well? How does it look?” she reached over her shoulder, plucking at the short ends that just reached her nape now. The braid she always wore was still fully in tact, which you predicted would become a nuisance to her at some point, but it still suited her. “Does it look alright? Well?”

“Yes, yes!” you chimed, thrusting the knife into the dirt before digging both hands into her ends to free any loose strands. She kept her hand resting atop of her shoulder while you worked, occasionally brushing your fingers as she pinched strands between her own. “I think it looks cute.”

She seemed to consider your words, “Cute?”

“Yeah! It looks super cute on you. I mean, in terms of that practicality you want, it will definitely be sufficient.” You added, aggressively swiping at your thighs with the hopes of being able to save your pants from a wash in the stream in the morning. “Wait until Link sees it, it will be amazing.”

Zelda turned back on the log just as you hopped to your feet to swipe the remnants off you, her dazzling eyes watching your movements earnestly. Even when you caught her gaze, she did not look away, though lines in her mouth at lifted into a smile set you heart aflutter.

“Thank you for this,” she raised her hand to brush her fingers along yours, gripping gingerly. “Thank you for everything.”

Something in you felt wrong for the wild beating in your heart, yet something else spoke louder to you, and you wove your fingers more tightly.


End file.
